We are leaving Saturday for an Eastern Caribbean cruise on Carnival Glory. We are stopping in Nassau, St. Thomas and St. Maarten. I was reading on an AOL travel board and there were a lot of negative comments about Nassau. People were saying it was dirty and dangerous. Do any of you seasoned cruises have any dos and don'ts? Good shore excursions? Don't bother shore excursions? Any tips will be much appreciated! We're really looking forward to our first cruise!

I've been looking at some other places and they said to make copies of all cruise documents and passports and put one in carry on, one in suitcase and leave one at home.

That's not a bad idea. But for the one you plan on leaving at home, change that to "leave with someone you can contact from your trip" Unless someone is goign to be able to retrieve it if you need it from your house, there is not much point in having a copy at home.

As for your passports, you won't need them after getting onto the ship until you get back off after your cruise. Your ship ID card will get you on and off the ship in the ports. So there isn't a huge concern over having copies of your passports, but it won't hurt.

I have a Yahoo email account I sent copies to myself then saved the documents there so if I need to I can print off the copies from anywhere there is internet/printer.
I made copies of credit cards, health cards, passports etc...

Originally posted by GAMOM:
We are leaving Saturday for an Eastern Caribbean cruise on Carnival Glory. We are stopping in Nassau, St. Thomas and St. Maarten. I was reading on an AOL travel board and there were a lot of negative comments about Nassau. People were saying it was dirty and dangerous. Do any of you seasoned cruises have any dos and don'ts? Good shore excursions? Don't bother shore excursions? Any tips will be much appreciated! We're really looking forward to our first cruise!

I didn't get the impression that Nassau was "dirty and dangerous" when I was there in Dec. of 06.

We did not book a shore excursion through the ship; in fact, we didn't have the foggiest idea what we were going to do in Nassau. As soon as we got off the ship we were approached by an independent tour operator who offered a 3-hour island tour in an air conditioned van for $15/person - our group of 7 jumped on that deal! It was a great tour!! We got to see the tourist areas, the fancy mansions, the slums, even the hospital Anna Nicole gave birth in (it was topical at the time). There were also a couple stops along the way at flea markets and historical sites as well as the Atlantis. At no point did I feel like I was in danger.

In Nassau, we picked up a cab and went to the Sheraton on cable beach and used their facilities (beach, pool, etc...) for a fun day in the sun. Was very cheap and the hotel was very accomodating as long as we spent money at the swim up bar which we had no problem doing. Was about a 4 mile cab ride to the hotel.